Today the Egyptian Science Teachers who we have worked with for twelve weeks finished their course and received their completion certificates … a happy and sad moment. They have engaged in activities outside their comfort zone and have visited places in the UK that they have dreamed about. It has been an exciting, stressful, funny, frustrating and learning time for all of us.

This map was constructed from 3*12 week courses for teachers from Egypt studying the use of digital technologies to enhance teaching and learning. The courses took place at the University of Leicester School of Education.

I am now getting towards the end of my lifelong involvement with teaching and learning and have watched the wheel turn over and over. I have watched dedicated teachers sink under a mess of targets and tests and have witnessed the destruction of freedoms of learning and creativity at the altar of PISA. I have watched so called maths and English take over the curriculum of the youngest and have seen the resolve of dedicated people slowly and remorselessly eroded until they ‘do it because they have to’. Few have managed to swim against the tide of assessment’s needs.

After a longish wait we are now expecting our third cohort of Egyptian teachers – a group of science specialists – to join us at the University of Leicester on Thursday. They fly in from Cairo on Wednesday and we will begin our orientation sessions with them at 9:30 on Thursday morning.
I have been brushing up on my Arabic so that I can welcome them 🙂

Getting towards the final stages of the course now and things are developing nicely. There is a lot of understanding about the need to vary teaching strategies and that technology could and should help with this.

The group has thoroughly engaged in the course content and some really creative ideas have come forward and have been shared.

There is a tendency to revert back to the present Egyptian Maths curriculum as a prop to non- engagement at some stages. It is too easy to accept that things cannot be done and we have tried to adopt the principle of ‘If not you then who? If not now then when?’

The teachers are now halfway through their course here at Leicester and are working hard on a great number of areas. School visits have been an eye-opener for them and they have been immersed in a whole range of styles, ages and techniques.
Their level of English both in writing and speech is increasing as is the understanding of the nuances of the language.
My Arabic still only extends to about 3 words and I am ashamed that I can’t remember more. It is all about usage.

gives the highlights as seen by the press and UK teachers. It is now up to the Egyptian teachers to make sense of all of the things that they saw and put the ideas in place within their curriculum. The problem is being dazzled by the vast array of things available that will probably have little or no impact in Egyptian schools. What was good, what was useful and why are the key questions to be answered.

Today has been quite a stressful one in that our assumptions about how difficult the task of blogging was were wrong. We must understand that the things we have been doing for a long while look really strange when they are new and the directions are not in a first language.

Message to self : must try harder

Message to group: when you can do something quickly please go and help someone who can’t

The second group of Egyptian teachers have arrived at the University of Leicester. This group are all teachers of maths and their arrival has provoked me to revisit this blog to muse over ideas that have moved on since the last post.

It has got me thinking about how innovation looks from a different direction and has alerted me to the layered nature of teaching. High ideals beyond pedagogy are the order of the day but feet musty be kept firmly on the ground to provide useful and usable opportunities for growth.

I will use this blog to post the progression of thought for the next 10 weeks as the course for these Egyptian teachers develops.